Those who tend toward reduction of the Bible’s supernatural explanations rationalize this as a total (or near total) solar eclipse. In fact, it is often pointed out that Luke, in his description, says that the sun was "obscured,"(1) and that the word he used in the original language was ekleipo, from which we get our English word "eclipse." But there are a couple of problems with that explanation. First, Jesus was crucified during Passover, an event that always fell on a full moon.(2) A solar eclipse is impossible during a full moon. Second, an eclipse lasts for only a matter of minutes, not three hours as our text says.

The account of the crucifixion of Jesus Christ is a story of horrendous suffering against a backdrop of unparalleled love of the Creator for those made in His image. The suffering part is made even worse with the knowledge that it was God giving His best while man shamefully responded by returning his worst. The events of that day, which form the fulcrum of all man’s history, are familiar to most people who love God and the Bible. Yet, you may be as I am, realizing that each time I study my way though the story, I discover something I had not fully understood.

Matthew mentions here in our text a succession of miraculous events that took place prior to, at the moment of, and after Jesus’ death. Did you notice them? Darkness came over the land for three hours prior to Jesus' death. At the moment He died, the veil of the temple was torn in two from top to bottom. There was an earthquake of a magnitude strong enough to split rocks. Certain tombs were opened (perhaps by the earthquake) and after His resurrection select people rose out of their graves, walked in the holy city, and were seen by many people.

While modern skeptics tell us that these events either didn’t happen this way or can be explained by natural causes, there really is no natural explanation that will cover them adequately. They either happened as the Bible describes, or they didn’t. The one who has trouble with the miracles of the Bible really has trouble with the identity of Jesus, for if the miracles were not really miracles, then Jesus was not really God. In that assessment, He’s just another man who lived a long time ago and then died like everyone else.

We haven't time to talk about all these miracles that took place when Jesus died on the cross, so this morning we'll focus on just one of them – the three hours of darkness that are described in verse 45. Let’s read that verse again…

So what about this darkness that fell at midday while Jesus was on the cross?

Matthew tells us in a very straight forward manner in verse 45: "Now from the sixth hour darkness fell upon all the land until the ninth hour." The "sixth hour," according to the Jewish way of keeping time that Matthew used, was noon. The ninth hour was 3 PM. What is described here is literal darkness at the brightest time of the day. This was obviously an extraordinary occurrence and not something typical, or the three gospel writers who reported it (Matthew, Mark, and Luke) would probably not have mentioned it at all – especially in the context of the other three miracles. None of these writers of the gospels mentions just how dark it became. Was this a total blackness that leaves men groping helplessly in the dark? Was it a significant dimming of the sun’s light? I’m inclined to think that it was not a total blackness, as the text lacks any indication that people who experienced it were fully unable to see.

Those who tend toward reduction of the Bible’s supernatural explanations rationalize this as a total (or near total) solar eclipse. In fact, it is often pointed out that Luke, in his description, says that the sun was "obscured,"(1) and that the word he used in the original language was ekleipo, from which we get our English word "eclipse." But there are a couple of problems with that explanation. First, Jesus was crucified during Passover, an event that always fell on a full moon.(2) A solar eclipse is impossible during a full moon. Second, an eclipse lasts for only a matter of minutes, not three hours as our text says. If this was an eclipse, then God would have had to move the moon well out of its orbit to produce it and then keep it there for three hours, which would have been a miracle in and of itself.

An alternate explanation is that the sun was obscured by a thick cloud cover. However, it hardly seems likely to me that three of the four gospel writers would be so impressed as to report on such an ordinary weather phenomenon as a cloudy day or that such a common occurrence would be remarkable enough to cause the service-hardened centurion who was overseeing the crucifixion and who had probably seen hundreds of men die in such circumstances, when he saw these things happening, to marvel and say, "Truly this was the Son of God."(3)

No, I rather suspect, that this darkness was a supernatural event, just like the other events that are described here. There are other examples of miraculous darkness described in the Bible. One that stands out in my mind is the darkness that fell over the land of Egypt in the time of Moses during the ninth of the ten plagues.(4) That one too is often explained naturally, namely by claiming that it was caused by a sandstorm.(5) However, it has never seemed likely to me that the stubborn Pharaoh of Egypt, whose chief deity, Ra, the sun god, was mocked by the darkness, would have been much impressed with a common desert sand storm.

What happened on the day Jesus died was a supernatural event. How God did it, I don’t know. I just know He did.

Surely the Holy Spirit meant something when He inspired three writers of Scripture to record that darkness came over the land for three hours while Jesus hung on the cross. Is there any significance other than the fact that this was an extraordinary event which accompanied the equally extraordinary offering of God’s Son?

The Bible does not specifically say. While it is sufficient in itself to have happened when it did, a number of possible explanations have been offered by students of the Bible in the years since this happened. Let me familiarize you with a few of them.

It has been suggested by some that the three hours of darkness may have been:

Before you dismiss that idea, let me ask you, did Jesus experience shame while He hung on the cross? The writer of Hebrews says He did. In Hebrews 12:2, we read that Jesus "endured the cross, despising the shame…." It was a shameful thing for the Creator of the universe(6) to be executed among men with a method reserved for only the lowest criminals. The same writer says in Hebrews 6:6 that those who fall away from the Lord to the extent that they can not be renewed to repentance "again crucify to themselves the Son of God, and put Him to open shame."

Adding to that the fact that men were crucified stark naked, and not draped tastefully with scraps of clothing as we see in modern pictures of the Lord on the cross today, the shameful things that were done to Jesus during the crucifixion are, in my opinion, sufficient to merit at least the suggestion that God might want to drape the whole event in curtains of darkness. Yet we don’t know that for sure. What we do know is that Jesus experienced shame while on the cross - the shame that is really ours.

Think about the most shameful thing you have ever done – something that would cause you to just die of embarrassment if you were aware that someone else knew. That sin that would embarrass the life out of you, along with all the other shameful things that you and I have done, were loaded on the back of Jesus when He hung on the cross.(7) He bore our shame as well as that heaped upon Him by his tormentors. While I don’t think understanding the darkness as a covering for shame is the most plausible explanation for what is described in our text, I can surely see why such a thing could happen.

It has also been suggested that the darkness may have been intended as:

While at first this angle might sound strange, we do know without doubt that Jesus, though He was subjected to bodily torture that actually took His physical life, was never out of control while He was on the cross. Speaking of His own life in John 10:18, Jesus told His disciples, "No one has taken it away from Me, but I lay it down on My own initiative. I have authority to lay it down, and I have authority to take it up again." Was the darkness actually caused by Jesus as a sign that He was still very much in control of these events and was actually allowing them happen? Charles Spurgeon once suggested in a sermon that, "If he can do this in his weakness, what is he able to do in his strength?"(8) Such a sign of His mighty power, still present within Him, if indeed that is what this darkness was, is not beyond the realm of possibility.

It has further been suggested that the three hours of darkness may simply have been:

Jerusalem was full of as many as one million Passover celebrants at the time Jesus was crucified. It's easy to imagine them rushing around, getting ready to sacrifice their annual Passover lambs. Yet most of them had little or no idea that "the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world,"(9) was being offered to purchase their permanent redemption just outside their capital city that day.

In fact, as I pointed out in my sermon last week, this crucifixion was the result of a series of illegal trials that constituted a "rush to judgment" pushed along by the Jewish leaders with the very intent that they get it done before the multitudes got word of it.

We don’t know how widespread this light outage was. Did God hit the dimmer switch only on Jerusalem or did it extend to regions beyond? Did all the land of Israel grope around in miraculous dimness for three hours? Was this perhaps even a worldwide phenomenon that caused all daytime activity to halt as men looked up at the sky, scratched their heads, and wondered what could be happening? The word for "all the land" that Matthew uses when he says, "darkness fell upon all the land" is employed in various contexts in the Bible, including references to the ground, the land, an entire region, and the whole world.(10)

Should not the cruel price that was being paid for man’s sins have been more widely acknowledged? Should not, even if this was only a city-wide or region-wide dimming, Jewish men and women who were busy about their Passover preparations, at least have been notified that something so significant was happening? And if that is reasonable, and I think it is, why not also notify the Gentiles who soon, too, would be offered the opportunity for eternal life through the cruel sacrifice of Jesus? Again, I’m not saying for sure that this was the reason for the darkness, because the Bible does not say. I’m just saying that for people beyond those who stood around His cross on Golgotha, this strange darkness must have given them pause to ask, "What is going on? Why is it suddenly so dark in the middle of the day? What does this mean?"

There are actually several reports in ancient literature outside the Bible that speak of earthquakes and a strange time of darkness that occurred in Judea about this time. One early church leader, a man named Origen, reported in his writing a statement by a Roman historian who described such an abnormal period of darkness. Another early church leader, Tertullian, wrote a letter to some non-Christian acquaintances and also spoke of an odd period of darkness on the day Jesus was crucified. As evidence that it was true, he cited references to it in their own history books.(11) This darkness may have been for the purpose of calling man’s attention to what was happening.

Then again, there are some who consider this period of darkness during the crucifixion to be:

As the Light of the World(12) hung there on the cross, He was engaged in the battle of the ages. God’s only Son, Jesus Christ, the author and perfecter of our faith, was locked in mortal combat with Satan on the serpent’s own turf. Our Lord engaged the devil right in his own "domain of darkness."(13) And as the prince of darkness battled with the Lord of Life, he pulled out all the stops! As the darkness descended upon the scene, it looked like darkness had won. It may be that at no time before this was the spirit world ever in such panic, confusion, and turmoil. Have you ever wondered why there is so much demon possession mentioned in the gospels yet why we don’t seem to see the same today? And for that matter, why we don’t read about a lot of demon possession in the history of the Old Testament? One reason may be that Jesus stirred up the dark spirit world in a way it was never stirred up before and has never been stirred up since. Do you remember the confusion of the demons that Jesus cast into the herd of swine in Gadera? Before He cast them out, according to Mark 8:29, they said, "What do we have to do with You, Son of God? Have You come here to torment us before the time?" What is remarkable here is that they didn’t seem to know why He had come. They didn’t understand His mission. I submit that the demonic spirit world was in an uproar and a panic when Jesus came. They knew He was there for a reason, but they didn’t know what it was. Could it be that this darkness from noon to three was a manifestation of the last efforts of Satan and his hoards to turn the Son of God back from His work of redemption? I think it’s possible.

Some also suggest that this darkness may have been caused by:

This idea seems to be supported by our text. Jesus cried out at the end of the three hours, "My God, My God, why have You forsaken Me." Apparently God the Father did turn away from Jesus while He was on the cross. While some suggest that this was done in much the same way that a parent might look away rather than watch in helplessness as his beloved child suffered, I suggest that it was rather because of what the Bible tells us in 2 Corinthians 5:21: "He made Him who knew no sin to be sin on our behalf…."As the sin of the entire world was charged to Jesus, He became all the sick and disgusting things that man is at his worst. Galatians 3:13 says that "Christ redeemed us from the curse of the Law, having become a curse for us…." God the Father, from eternity past up until the time Jesus hung on the cross, had looked upon His Son, the second Person of the Godhead, with love and approval because of His sinless purity and perfection. But now, as Jesus became "sin on our behalf," and "a curse for us," God the Father, in His holiness, had to look away from the disgusting and repulsive sight. God isn't squeamish. He’s holy. He’s separated from sin.

"But that’s not fair," you say. "Jesus was on a mission of mercy! God should have admired Him for what He was doing. Why would God desert Him in His hour of greatest need?" Let me try to explain it with a familiar Bible account.

Do you recall the account of the serpent in the wilderness back in the book of Numbers?(14) Because of Israel’s complaining when He led them through the desert after they left Egypt, God sent them a wake up call in the form of fiery serpents (brightly colored snakes) that slithered into the camp and bit many of the people. The venom of those snakes was so deadly that a lot of them died on the spot. When Moses prayed to God on the people’s behalf, God told him to forge a brass replica of the deadly snake and raise it up on a pole among the people. When those who were bitten looked upon the brass replica of the snake on the pole, they were miraculously healed. Much later, as you may know, Jesus used that piece of history to explain what He was going to do on the cross. In John 3:14-15 He said, "As Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, even so must the Son of Man be lifted up; that whoever believes may in Him have eternal life." We love to talk about the eternal life that God has offered us through Christ. But do we really understand what the Lord had to do to obtain it for us? He, the One Who, from eternity past, had never sinned, had to take on the characteristics of our sin! To heal us from the deadly bite of sin, He had to become a shameful replica of that sin. Just as Moses did with the brass replica of the snake, God did when He raised Jesus up on the cross as a facsimile of sin so that those who wish to be forgiven must look to Him. So the darkness may have been caused by God turning away from the disgusting thing that His Son became on our behalf.

Does that make you appreciate Christ’s sacrifice just a little more?

There is one final suggestion as to what this darkness at midday when Jesus was crucified might have meant. This darkness may have been:

1 John 1:5 says, "God is light, and in Him there is no darkness at all." Where God goes, light goes, and darkness is dispelled. When God leaves, darkness gathers.

It may be that when God, Who is light, removed His presence from Jesus, the only thing that remained was darkness.

Is it just a coincidence that the Bible’s description of hell is that of a place of darkness and loneliness? Why would hell be dark and lonely? Because God isn’t there! Yes, the Bible does describe a place called hell where people who have rejected God’s offer of forgiveness through Christ will live forever, alone and in perpetual darkness. And it may well be that they will echo Jesus’ plaintiff cry spoken when He was on the cross: "My God, My God, why have you forsaken me?" The trouble with such a sad plea coming from someone in hell, however, will be that there is no resurrection three days later to make things better again. There will only be perpetual darkness and loneliness – the absence of the Creator.

My friends, don’t do anything to jeopardize your salvation! Don’t trifle with sacred things to the extent that you lose them. Don’t let Satan deceive you into thinking that there are better things to be had than eternal life. Don’t allow false teachers, of which there are many today, to deceptively convince you having a good time is more important than your continued dedication to the teaching of the word of God.

Jesus tasted the darkness and loneliness of hell so that you don’t have to. But we must come to Him on His terms and remain faithful to Him until we die. I intend to go to my own grave with this message on my lips. I hope that you will go to yours with this message in your heart.

Perhaps for us living today, the best way to look at this darkness is as a warning of the darkness that awaits all those who reject Christ as the sacrificial substitute for their own lives.

I’ll close with Paul’s warning in 1 Thessalonians 5:4-6:

Amen!

Footnotes: Please use your back button to return to your place.

1. Luke 23:44-45: "And it was now about the sixth hour, and darkness fell over the whole land until the ninth hour, the sun being obscured…." NAS
2. For an explanatory diagram of this, go to:http://www.keyway.ca/htm2003/20031109.htm
3. Matthew 27:54 
4. Exodus 10:21
5. Fausset's Bible Dictionary, Electronic Database Copyright (c)1998 by Biblesoft, article on "Darkness."
6. Colossians 1:16
7. 1 Peter 2:24
8. THE THREE HOURS’ DARKNESS, A sermon delivered at the Metropolitan Tabernacle, by C.H. Spurgeon, April 18, 1886. From Ages Digital Library, The C.H. Spurgeon Collection.
9. John 1:29
10. Strong’s Concordance, #1093
11. John MacArthur, in his New Testament Commentary on Matthew, notes: Several interesting reports in extrabiblical literature suggest that the darkness at Jesus' crucifixion was worldwide. The early church Father Origen (Against Celsus, 2.33) reported a statement by a Roman historian who mentioned such a darkness. Another church Father, Tertullian, wrote to some pagan acquaintances about an unusual darkness on that day, "which wonder is related in your own annals and preserved in your own archives to this day." There was also a supposed report from Pilate to Emperor Tiberius that assumed the emperor's knowledge of a certain widespread darkness, even mentioning that it was from twelve to three in the afternoon."The MacArthur New Testament Commentary, (c) Moody Press and John MacArthur, Jr., 1983-2002. Comments on Matthew 27:45.Also see Christian Apologetics and Research Ministry at:http://www.carm.org/questions/darkday.htm
12. John 8:12
13. Colossians 1:13
14. Numbers 21:6-9

Dave Redick is Minister of the Hwy 20 Church of Christ in Sweet Home, Oregon and Editor of The Preacher's Study. He may be reached at pstudysupport@comcast.net.

Copyright © 1996-2008 by The Preacher's Study. Permission is granted to subscribers to use this document in total or in sermon preparation in the context of the local congregation only. Publishing it in a book, on the Internet, or anyplace beyond the local congregation is prohibited.

All Scripture quotations and references are from the New American Standard Version unless otherwise stated.

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